I promised (warned?) you that there'd be more about kids and stuff before the holiday season was through…and here it is! In preparation for the holiday buy-a-thon, I'm arming you with everything I can find against buying or accepting too many things for your kids.

In My Kids Have Too Much Stuff, Sharon Holbrook writes for The Washington Post, "I might get a sticker at the doctor’s office, just like my children still do, but I didn’t get a strip of eight stickers from Trader Joe’s. One is more fun than eight. One gets stuck proudly on a shirt. A strip of eight winds up in a discarded heap on the floor of my car."

"One is more fun than eight." Yes! Less is truly more. So when it comes to holiday gifts, give one special item instead of ten. Ask family members to go in together on one or two gifts, rather than each person adding to your child's pile of loot.